I’m still far from enthusiastic about Starmer, but I fully understand why he needs to be as vague as possible about his vision before the next GE is called. We know that the Tories have a track record of nicking Labour policies and rebranding them as their own, as we’ve seen in recent times. 30p Lee confirmed what we already knew in that the Tories are clapped out and completely out of ideas, meaning that their main strategy will be to continue to stir up culture wars.
I was critical of Starmer early on, and had Labour lost the Batley and Spen by-election a couple of years ago, on the back of losing Hartlepool and the poor local election results, his position could have come under question.
But ultimately the party had 202 seats in the Commons when he took over, 7 fewer than when Kinnock took over in 1983. I thought that for a period that Labour’s best hope was making decent gains at the next GE so that they could then win the one after that. The fact that they have a realistic chance of winning the next GE, regardless of the fact that the Tories have completely unravelled since the Owen Paterson scandal, means that his leadership has been a success.